FBI Quietly Revises Shocking Data Errors
Three weeks ago, the FBI revised its data to show that in 2022, violent crime rose by 4.5%. Originally, their September 2023 report claimed that violent crime fell by 2.1%.
The revised data includes 80,000 more incidents of violent crime than previously reported, with an increase of 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, over 33,000 robberies, and 37,000 aggravated assaults.
So what gives? Did they just forget 80 thousand crimes?
Unless you follow RealClearPolitics, you probably haven’t heard this either.
Why?
Because while the FBI has admitted the flub, they’re being pretty quiet about it, and mainstream media is not reporting much on it.
RealClearInvestigations said it:
“Discovered the change through a cryptic reference on the FBI website that states: ‘The 2022 violent crime rate has been updated for inclusion in CIUS, 2023.’” and that the only way to see the change is “by downloading the FBI’s new crime data and comparing it to the file released last year.”
Last month, the FBI released a press release suggesting violent crime declined about 3.5% in 2023, and it's trending down overall over the past couple of years. But there was no mention of the revised 2022 figure.
Of course, the new figure would also adjust that 2023 data, bringing the decrease to just 1.6%. Hardly an appreciable downtrend over the years and, honestly, difficult to even trust.
An excerpt from RealClearInvestigations says:
“I have checked the data on total violent crime from 2004 to 2022,” Carl Moody, a professor at the College of William & Mary who specializes in studying crime, told RealClearInvestigations. “There were no revisions from 2004 to 2015, and from 2016 to 2020, there were small changes of less than one percentage point. The huge changes in 2021 and 2022, especially without an explanation, make it difficult to trust the FBI data.”
As of today, I can find no explanation from the FBI or anyone else in government.
Like, oopsie, lol!
It’s true that data on all crimes is hard to come by because not everything is reported. But murders? Almost always reported.
So, did the FBI just forget 1,699 of them?
Without an explanation, I don’t think we’ll ever know.
If you want to read further on this, check out this article from CrimeResearch.Org: The Revised FBI Crime Data Reveals that it Originally Missed 1,699 Murders in 2022. Given that Almost all Murders are Reported, How Does the FBI Miss that Many Murders?
